


whenever you're black and you're blue

by blanchtt



Category: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-21
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2019-02-04 23:29:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12781974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanchtt/pseuds/blanchtt
Summary: The day has been one constant buzz of adrenaline through her body - equal parts exhilarating as she had obliterated Teleborian on the witness stand and exhausting as she had finally had time to sit, to absorb it all, and to realize that that simply wouldn’t be possible in one night.





	whenever you're black and you're blue

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting a few deleted fics. 
> 
> This has major spoilers for the entire book series but I can't seem to find the book category to put this in.

  


 

 

 

 

The day has been one constant buzz of adrenaline through her body - equal parts exhilarating as she had obliterated Teleborian on the witness stand point by point and exhausting as she had finally had time to sit in silence, to absorb it all, and to realize that that simply wouldn’t be possible in one night. Probably not even a week.

 

“Would you like to come up?”

 

Salander stands on the sidewalk, next to the open window of her car, and looks at her with an expression that is slowly growing stormy. If Giannini didn’t know better she’d think Salander was embarrassed. It is true that she admires her - her sheer strength, that was it. What Salander had gone through throughout her life had been almost unbelievable, except that Giannini had seen the irrefutable proof, had had access to the medical records showing that she had indeed survived a bullet to the brain, had accepted Salander’s autobiography in stunned silence when she had presented it to her, and had had to watch and listen to the Bjurman tape.

 

The anger she had felt as she had watched it had been almost unprofessional, and the baseless need to protect Salander - she could clearly take care of herself - was not only useless but a need that was on a visceral, emotional level, definitely unprofessional. There was a strict amount of involvement, only so much emotion, that she could afford to extend to her clients. If she took it all personally, especially as a woman, she’d be eviscerated in court. 

 

Giannini knows Salander won’t ask again. She slumps in her seat, foot still on the brake and the car running. The faint smell of exhaust reaches her. Time is ticking. What she wouldn’t do for a bed right now to lay down in. But with the look in Salander’s eyes she knows there will be no sleeping if she accepts her invitation. Giannini shakes her head, torn - _I’m married_ \- and is surprised at what comes out of her mouth. It must be the day, the whirlwind of activity since four in the morning when she woke up to prepare for court, too wired to sleep longer. 

 

“Let me park.”

 

She finds a space with difficulty and walks several blocks back to where Salander stands on the sidewalk waiting for her, smoking. 

 

Salander only looks at her as she approaches, drops the cigarette butt and grinds it out with the toe of her black boot before turning and going up the stairs. Giannini follows without the least bit of pomp or romance. They stop before the door, and she watches as Salander slips keys out of her pocket, fiddles with the door. The scandal if anyone were to find her would be her problem, of a legal sort but one not on the scale of Salander’s previous problems. She is free to do as she pleases and now so is Salander, but to sleep with a client she risks much.

 

Yet Salander opens the door, walks in and leaves it wide open, and Giannini follows, closes and locks it behind her as Salander turns to her right and seems to disable some sort of alarm. 

 

Salander then disappears down a hallway without a word and Giannini is left alone. She takes in the enormous apartment, almost incredulously - but representing Salander has been an exercise in believing the unbelievable. Giannini makes her way intuitively to the bedroom. It is barely decorated, and she wonders exactly how long Salander has lived here. There is an unmade bed, gigantic, a lamp, a desk with a computer on it, a wastebasket full of crumpled-up papers, a chair, and not much else. 

 

Giannini steps out of her heels, pushes them with her foot out of the way, and works at the buttons of her sweater, slips it off and hooks fingers over the hem of her skirt. Down her hips it goes, and her camisole follows. A shower would be lovely, but she’d surely fall asleep as soon as her back hit the bed if she were to take one. She runs a hand over her own waist, thoughts a blank. With her trial over, Monday will be a normal day at the firm. Things will settle back to normal, except they won’t, will they? And with Mikael for family, a journalist always finding himself in the thick of some scoop or conspiracy or both, their bar for normal has been blown completely out of the water. 

 

Giannini turns to find Salander walking through the doorway. The make-up from earlier is gone, the Salander that she knows now returned - she almost barks out a laugh at the thought - and dressed in dark, baggy cotton pants and nothing else. The sight is fascinating. Giannini had left out that little fact when she’d rattled off the list of salacious things she’d done in her past. The women she’s been with have been few and far between, and it takes a moment to change gears - she flicks her eyes up, keeps them above Salander’s chest out of decency and then reminds herself she’s here to fuck, not go over her retainer. 

 

The other woman’s eyes watch her, and Giannini feels herself blush at the intense stare, unblinking, and can almost feel the heat of her as Salander looks her up and down. She knows better than to even think that she is here only because she and Mikael are related. Wu had made it abundantly clear that what she and Salander had was real, some sort of relationship despite the lack of name to it, and the accusations of polyamorous satanism simply the mad ravings of a press run amok. Whatever she chose to call herself, Salander has invited her up to her apartment because of attraction, plain and simple.

 

Giannini walks to the bed, slips into it and looks away as she reaches behind herself, unhooks her bra and slips if off her arms and lets it fall to the floor. In the chill of the apartment, clearly unlived in for quite some time, she feels goosebumps overtake her, her nipples peak. Salander finally moves, climbs onto the bed and over toward her.

 

From Wu’s statement her and Salander’s relationship had seemed tame despite one or two instances of light bondage. It was, as far as she could tell, the most stable thing in Salander’s life. And so Giannini has no idea what to expect and lets Salander roll her onto her back, slip between her legs, hands bracketing her thighs for purchase, and rock her hips up. The boney jut of her hip presses against her clit through the almost nonexistent fabric of her lingerie, and Giannini feels herself arch up, hissing. She clings to her, lets Salander rock against her, an almost quiet breathing the only sound from her.  

 

Her life has been built around women. Salander is the extreme, but frustratingly not in any way unusual. Giannini’s seen similar machinations on other levels, variations of violence and hatred that no longer surprise her yet have something in her still rankle at the thought, like she imagines happens similarly in Mikael. The need to find the truth to the story, despite the smokescreens and muscle trying their damnedest to hide it, and to drag that out into the light, to show, tick mark by tick mark off her list, the defense’s guilt. 

 

Stupidly, Giannini reaches up, loops her arms around Salander’s boney shoulders and pulls her closer, is surprised that Salander lets her, her thin body flush against her, hips to stomach to breast. In their undulations nipples brush against her own, and Giannini shivers as she kisses Salander. Between the press she slips her hand, cups Salander’s right breast. She’s petite in every sense of the word, but in women Giannini had always found that sexier than a fuller figure. In that, she and Mikael were very different. 

 

Salander accepts her motions with what at times feels too close to indifference, which worries Giannini greatly. Is she forcing herself on her? But quite unexpectedly one of Salander’s hands trails down between her thighs, pushes aside the fabric of her panties, and hesitates, so it must not be so. Giannini nods, groaning in delight as Salander enters her. She’s wet so it’s not difficult for the other woman to pick up a pace that gives her nothing but pleasure, strokes deep and strong. “Another,” she requests, and Salander complies. 

 

Salander fucks with almost mechanical drive. Giannini comes shuddering and feels Salander push her on, fingers still moving in her and hips grinding her down onto the bed, until she grips at the sheets and cries out as another orgasm overtakes her, washing over the first, harder. She arches away from Salander’s touch, sensitive, and feels Salander back off instantly. 

 

The loss of her between her thighs has Giannini reaching out, touching her arm as Salander sits up next to her, just a brush of fingers on her wrist. “Just give me a moment,” Giannini asks, panting.

 

“Okay.”

 

 

-

 

 

Giannini wakes to only a single text from her husband, asking her to let him know her plans for the day. She imagines he assumes she spent the night with her brother, either sleeping or celebrating. She looks back over at the bed, at Salander looking almost uncharacteristically at peace as she sleeps, and drops her phone back on the pile of her clothing she’d discarded the night before. He can wait. She had known that her husband had had a fling, once, a single mistake. She hadn't faulted him for it. It was human nature. He had promised it wouldn’t happen again, and she had taken him back willingly, forgiven him. They had too much together for one mistake to ruin it all. 

 

In an oversized shirt with an eloquently obscene phrase screen printed on it that she had found in Salander’s wardrobe, Giannini walks quietly out of Salander’s bedroom, heads toward the kitchen that overlooked a balcony with a view to kill for. She unlatches the sliding glass door, steps out, and feels the cool early morning air hit her. Giannini leans on the cold steel railing, and decides she doesn't want to know how Salander has come into possession of such a fine piece of real estate. She watches the sun rise, orange and dull-edged with the morning's fog, and goes back inside once it would be unwise to be caught out on the balcony in only a shirt.

 

Giannini walks back into the kitchen and finds Salander shirtless, wearing a pair of functional panties that would never be considered lingerie and munching on something. Her hair sticks up, mohawk leaning very much to the right, and Giannini sits down at the table, eying the dark, mottled marks she had left on Salander's breasts and up along the curve of her neck. That had gotten a reaction out of her.

 

“Have you got somewhere to be?” Salander asks. To get any word out of her is not a monumental task - that would imply some possibility that anyone could make it happen. Salander speaks when she wants to, and not one moment or word more. That she’s just taken the initiative to ask her a question, one about her that could favorably be considered a conversation, Giannini has come to understand, is a veritable gift.

 

“Yes,” Giannini says, but before the wall can come up again, before Salander’s expression can go steely and cold, she gets up, motions after her. “Back to bed, if you’ll join me.”

 

She hears Salander run the water in the sink, washing her hands, and then pad after her, footsteps on the hardwood, and Giannini concludes that, sore and satisfied from the night before, as much as she loves him Mikael is an idiot when it comes to women.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
